Lately I’ve received a fair amount of comment spam in the blog. Fortunately, most of it is wiped away by Spaminator and none has passed through WordPress’ moderation queue for a really long time (knocking wood).

The most recent change in the spam comments is that there is no body, except two quotation marks (”"). Spaminator does not care about these, and they end to the moderation. I clean the queue twice a week or so, usually when writing new articles. So there are not a pain, but still somewhat annoying.

I checked Wordpress.org and found no mention of this issue except one entry in the forum. Maybe I should dive into the code and get this fixed — but on the other hand, I haven’t yet upgraded to WP 2.0. Spaminator could also tackle them with small modifications. Time will tell whether I get heated up with them and actually do something for it.

Wayne’s Coffee is a Swedish originated coffeeshop chain that has been steadily opening new cafés in Finland. Helsinki center hosts seven, most in malls or department stores. One of the biggest is located in Kaisaniemi, a couple of blocks to east from the central railway station.

The café has the normal variety of sweet and salty pastries, and all special coffees are available, too. The muffins set Wayne’s really apart from the rest of the cafés, as they are big, fresh and delicious.

There is also an Internet stand and a wireless network available in the café, but it is not free.

www.waynescoffee.fi, Kaisaniemenkatu 3, Helsinki, Finland, +358 40 413 9401

Finally one of my Mac related dreams has come true! I found an OS X utility called Witch that provided support for Windows like Alt-Tab window switching.

And it really does provide switching between application windows in window activity order, unlike Mac’s built-in Cmd-Tab implementation that allows you to switch between applications in application activity order.

The program is configurable, for example, you can have the windows listed in the application activity order, and change the size of the Alt-Tab pane hovering on top of the windows.

Witch can be downloaded from Peter Maurer site.

Suomalainen Kirjakauppa has two bookstores on the same market square. This sounds stupid, but probably there are some historical reasons behind it — other one used to be Akademic Bookstore, but some of their shops were sold to Suomalainen chain.

Both stores carry the full selection, including books, magazines, games, maps, office supplies, stationery and a limited amount of computing related items. The English book selection is at least decent and the selection of English magazines is good or even excellent. On other languages your mileage may vary.

www.suomalainen.com, Kauppakatu 23 & Siltakatu 10, Joensuu, Finland, +358 13 2644 320 & +358 13 264 4340

f you are tighter on budget, Halonen might be the best solution for your clothing needs in Joensuu. Located nearby the market square (and opposite of Kekäle clothing store), Halonen store provides clothes, shoes and accessories on quite good prices. Consecutively, the brands are not the top of the breed, but still just okay.

They stock a wide variety of clothes for most of the occasions in life, excluding the most formal wear such as tail coats and tuxedos (that are not used in Finland anyhow). The clerks are quite attentive after you have get hold of one, and they are also knowledgeable.

www.halonen.net, Kauppakatu 21, Joensuu, Finland, +358 13 126 158

We spent the Epiphany public holiday with my parents in Polvijärvi, North Carelia. Epiphany, known also as Three King’s Day, marks the end of the Christmas season in Finland and you traditionally remove all decorations and carry the tree out after Epiphany.

This year, Epiphany was happened to be on Friday and I got a few hours off from work, so we set on our journey on Thursday afternoon. The trip was eventless and surprisingly fast, and the grandparents could enjoy Aapo’s company for a couple of hours before he went to sleep.

Friday was really lazy day, I upgraded my parents computer, showed pictures and film of Aapo, and just took time off. On Saturday, we visited my aunt in Liperi (a neighbouring town) and shopped a little (really little) in Joensuu. To be honest with you, we just popped in the local hypermarket and spent less than half an hour wandering on the aisles…

The better part of Sunday was spent again in car. We drove first to Kuopio, again surprisingly fast as the roads were empty, to meet Sanna’s brothers and sister-in-law. Finland has winter speed limits, so you can drive most of the time only 80 km/h and driving is just an awful drag. But not on that trip, for some odd reason. It took less than five hours to get back to Helsinki. I would have estimated at least one hour more, but I don’t complain.

Kekäle is by far the best place to buy clothing in Joensuu. Their store is a sort of hidden at one corner of the marketsquare, as most of the floor space is on the basement. They sell clothes for both sexes and all generations.

The ground floor, near the market square, sells young clothing. Descending down brings you to the more formal wear section for him and at the other end of the basement are clothes for her. Women’s selection continues on the ground floor (not connected to the young clothing) that hosts also the children’s clothes.

Kekäle has a good selection of brands, both Finnish and international. Their selection ends at the upper middle class, so don’t expect finding too much of haute couture.

I’ve always received very good service in Kekäle. The clerks are ready to go lenghts to find clothes that satisfy my taste, and they are knowledgeable, too.

www.kekale.fi, Kauppakatu 20, Joensuu, Finland, +358 13 225 371

Sokos department store offers the best shopping experience under one roof in Joensuu. Mostly because it is the only real department store in the town. I personally can’t consider Anttila or Citymarket as a department store…

Anyhow, Joensuu’s Sokos is located next to the market square and the building hosts a few restaurants, bars and a hotel besided the store itself. The floor plan is typical to most of the department stores: parfumerie and accessories on the ground floor, women’s clothes on the first floor, home stuff on the basement.

Sokos has a large selection of Finnish and international clothing brands. Nothing too fancy, but good clothes for work, leisure and party. The basement sells Iittala glassware and porcelain among others. There is also a full stocked grocery store on the ground floor.

www.sokos.fi, Siltakatu 6, Joensuu, Finland, +358 10 765 080, joensuu@sokos.fi